Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday January 04, 2013 @12:36AM
from the upset-metal-stomach dept.

iComp points out an interesting project in Derbyshire, northern England. "Bioboffins at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Derbyshire, UK, have developed a robot that can projectile vomit on command as a tool for studying the spread of the highly infectious norovirus. Reuters reports that the hyperemetic droid has been dubbed 'Vomiting Larry' by its creator, researcher Catherine Makison, who describes it as a 'humanoid simulated vomiting system.' The goal of said vomiting system is to study the reach and dispersion of human vomitus, which is one of the primary ways that diseases such as norovirus can spread. Norovirus is a fairly common viral infection that is sometimes known as the 'winter vomiting bug' due to its increased prevalence in the colder months. Outbreaks are generally triggered when humans ingest contaminated food or water, but can continue when subsequent people come in contact with surfaces that have been contaminated by the initial patient's effluvium."

We had this hit after my sister's wedding a few years ago. It is an insanely bad 12-36 hours; I personally lost more than 10 lbs over the course of 24 hours (most of it water weight, but still). It's vomiting and diarrhea the like of which only exists in horror movies and it is insanely communicable. If someone around you has a case you will get it yourself. Hand sanitizers don't kill it effectively, it survives 12 hours on solid rock and 12 days on fabrics, and the shear force of the vomiting ensur

I suggest you brush up on your grammar. "projectile" is being used as an adverb, not a verb. However, "projectile" and "vomit" together form a compound verb. No different to "nose dive" or "duck walk".

I wonder what was the cost of building the robot balanced against the scientific utility. If the main finding is that it can vomit up to 3 meters far, how certain can they be that the distance is simulated effectively? Perhaps by comparing to "live" vomiters, but that would defeat the purpose of building the robot in the first place...? Also, I would assume that there is some probability distribution for the distance the vomit flies from different mouths (writing this sentence, yes I can see the IG Nobel no

I used to work at HSL, left about 5 years ago. It has an unusual remit. Its origins are in providing scientific support to the Health and Safety Executive (e.g. accident investigations, providing scientifically sound guidance to HSE inspectors etc.) but it does a lot of research into wider occupational/public health areas too. It also has some of the UK's leading experts in the effects of fire and explosions, and a fair amount of work done there relates to that - most of the fireworks authorised for sale

If robots ever rise up and squash us, it'll be because we did shit like this to them. Just watch, payback is going to be a bitch. First they'll puke on us, then they'll make us clean up their puke. Oh, the bitter irony...